Description
Prior to European contact, there were at least 50,000-60,000 Apalachees. They were a strong and powerful tribe living in widely dispersed villages. Other tribes respected the Apalachees because they belonged to an advanced Indian civilization, they were prosperous, and they were fierce warriors. The Apalachee were an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, specifically an Indigenous people of Florida, who lived in the Florida Panhandle until the early 18th century. They lived between the Aucilla River and Ochlockonee River, at the head of Apalachee Bay, an area known as the Apalachee Province. Following a series of devastating attacks on Spanish Florida by the British and their Creek Indian allies, Mission San Luis was burned and abandoned by its residents on July 31, 1704. Some Apalachees, who were not killed outright or enslaved, migrated north in to Creek territory. Others moved east to St. Augustine with the Spaniards or temporarily relocated in Timucua Province before eventually resettling in St. Augustine.
Language
Apalachee was a Muskogean language of the American Southeast, once spoken in the Florida Panhandle and parts of Southeast Georgia. Very little is known of it today. Early Spanish transcripts of the language suggest that it was most closely related to Hitchiti and Alabama.
Culture
For food, they grew corn, beans and squash. Men prepared the fields and women tended the crops. Men also hunted bear, deer and small game, while women gathered nuts and berries. Traditionally the men wore deerskin loincloths and women wore Spanish moss skirts. When preparing for battle, the men painted their bodies with red ochre and put feathers in their hair. The Apalachees played a ball game that was a religious exercise as well as a sport. One village would challenge another to a match, and the two teams would have up to 100 players each. They played the ball game in the spring and summer, and dedicated it to the gods of rain and thunder to ensure rain for their crops.